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Questions for the Geneva Convention Meeting
(Washington Post) Eugene Kontorovich - Switzerland on Wednesday convened a conference of State Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to discuss the law of occupation as it pertains to Israel. Art. 49(6)'s prohibition of "deportation and transfer" into occupied territory could certainly do with elucidation. Indeed, an examination of movement into occupied territory in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Western Sahara, and Cyprus would be both timely and instructive. Needless to say, this is not what the state parties will be discussing. The state parties apparently regard Israel as occupying Gaza and all of the West Bank, despite the removal of Israeli troops from those areas and the existence of an independent Palestinian administration there. However, occupation in all other contexts requires the occupying power to displace and actually function as the governing authority, conditions that do not apply in Gaza and large parts of the West Bank (Area A). An International Committee of the Red Cross manual states: "Occupation ceases when the occupying forces are driven out of or evacuate the territory." The writer is a professor at Northwestern University School of Law.